IRLF 


B    2 


of 


By  fredtrkk  Boward  Wlne$,  CC.  D. 


FORTY    YEARS   AFTER. 

The  Greatness   of 
Abraham  Lincoln: 

AN    ADDRESS 

Delivered    at   the    Lincoln    Monument 

On    Decoration    Day, 

May  30,  1905, 


BY 


FREDERICK  HOWARD  WINES,  L,L,.  D. 

II 


SPRINGFIELD,  ILLINOIS: 
1905. 


• 


gtncoin, 


There  is  nothing  new  to  be  said  about  Abraham  Lin 
coln.  On  this  day  consecrated  to  the  memory  of  our 
heroic  dead,  of  whom  he  is  the  most  illustrious,  it  is 
nevertheless  a  sad  but  pleasant  duty  to  recall  him  to 
mind  and  place  our  humble  tribute  of  grateful  appre 
ciation  upon  his  tomb.  Especially  is  it  appropriate 
that  this  simple  ceremonial  be  not  neglected  or  unworth 
ily  performed  in  the  town  where  he  lived,  from  which 
he  went  forth,  a  knight  without  fear  and  without  re 
proach,  and  to  it  he  returned,  crowned  with  the  glory 
of  martyrdom.  On  this  spot  a  nation  plunged  in  grief 
laid  his  beloved  dust  to  rest  in  the  grave.  There  are 
those  among  us  who  knew  him  as  no  others  had  the 
opportunity  to  know  him.  Around  the  head  of  every 
departed  hero  a  cloud  gathers,  large  in  proportion  to 
the  height  to  which  he  towered  above  his  fellows.  It 
takes  the  shape  of  a  halo,  it  changes  color  with  the 
lapse  of  years,  as  the  sky  bursts  into  flame  when  the 
sun's  level  rays  gild  the  eastern  or  western  horizon; 
but,  as  the  light  of  the  noonday  sun  is  white,  so,  in  the 
light  of  historical  criticism,  that  which  was  mythical 
fades  away,  and  the  true  image  of  the  man  appears. 
The  difficult  task  that  I  have  set  myself,  on  this  occa 
sion,  is  to  draw  a  truthful  portrait  of  Lincoln,  one 
whose  verisimilitude  will  be  felt  and  acknowledged  by 
those  of  his  townsmen  and  contemporaries  still  living, 
whose  mouthpiece  for  the  moment  I  would  fain  make 
myself;  for  my  eyes  never  beheld  him  except  in  death. 


M1S0973 


••:*.•  *:  N.atiiTfe  *:nxade  Lincoln  great.  That  his  greatness  was 
not  always  recognized  by  those  who  saw  him  in  the 
undress  which  was  natural  to  him,  is  not  surprising. 
A  mine  does  not  reveal  its  hidden  treasure  until  it  is 
opened.  His  ungainly  figure  was  the  casket  in  which 
Nature  had  deposited  a  gem  of  priceless,,  unsuspected 
value,  a  new  soul,  and  such  a  one  as  his  neighbors,  his 
country  and  the  world  did  not  dream  to  exist  upon 
earth. 

Because  he  was  not  understood,  and  is  not  yet  under 
stood,  the  imagination  clothes  with  him  mystery  and 
is  prone  to  regard  his  career  as  a  miracle.  An  appre 
ciative,  sympathetic  biographer  has  even  said  of  him 
that  "he  was  an  enigma  to  all  men."  From  this 
view  I  venture  to  dissent.  There  is  indeed  a  sense  in 
which  every  man  is  an  enigma  to  every  other.  No 
man  can  or  will  unveil  himself  to  any  other,  except 
in  part.  No  two  men  touch  at  all  points,  therefore  no 
two  can  comprehend  each  other,  except  in  part.  We 
are  all  many-sided;  Lincoln  was  so  to  a  degree  far 
beyond  most  men.  He  was  reticent  by  nature,  did  his 
own  thinking,  acted  upon  his  own  judgment,  gave  his 
entire  confidence  to  no  one,  rarely  sought  advice,  and 
said  no  more  upon  any  occasion  than  he  chose  to  say. 
Genius  is  always  inexplicable. 

It  has  been  truly  said  that  "to  understand  a  thing 
is  to  perceive  its  relations."  To  understand  Lincoln,  we 
must  comprehend  his  relations.  He  was  of  pioneer 
stock,  and  his  early  life  was  that  of  a  pioneer.  How 
inadequate,  if  not  how  false,  is  the  conception  formed 
of  pioneer  life  by  one  who  has  not  himself  shared  it, 
who  knows  the  backwoods  and  the  frontier  only  by 
hearsay  and  report,  who  has  never  stood  where  he 
could  see  the  tide  of  emigration  flow  past  him  over  the 
prairies  and  plains  of  the  great  west !  A  portrait  must 


have  a  background.  Is  it  reasonable  to  suppose  that 
any  but  a  frontiersman  can  so  paint  the  reflected  lights 
and  shadows  as  to  bring  into  strong  relief  that  gigantic 
figure?  As  well  might  we  expect  a  foreigner,  with 
European  traditions  and  prejudices,  who  has  never 
crossed  the  Atlantic  ocean,  to  picture  to  himself  the 
new  world  as  it  really  is.  A  gulf  as  wide,  as  deep  as 
that  ocean  separates,  too,  che  mere  litterateur  and 
scholar  from  the  able  and  successful  man  who  has  not 
enjoyed  the  same  advantages  of  a  literary  training. 
Everything  that  books  contain  must  have  been  known 
by  somebody,  before  a  book  about  it  could  be  written. 
Book  learning  is  knowledge  at  second  hand  on  testi 
mony,  to  be  received  by  faith.  Lincoln,  like  all  great 
men  who  are  self-made,  looked  man  and  nature  directly 
in  the  face. 

It  was  probably  well  for  him,  and  for  us,  that  he 
did  not  receive  an  academic  education.  The  men  of 
whom  this  can  be  said  are  not  many,  but  he  must  be 
numbered  among  them.  The  knowledge  of  books  is 
not  the  knowledge  of  men,  and  for  one  in  public  life 
the  knowledge  of  men  is  of  greater  consequence  than 
that  of  books.  The  farm,  the  flatboat,  the  country 
store,  the  judicial  circuit,  brought  him  into  touch  with 
the  people  as  the  university  never  could  have  done. 
The  university  would  have  removed  him  to  too  great  a 
distance  from  them.  The  effort  involved  in  acquiring 
knowledge  by  his  unaided  exertions  imparted  additional 
vigor  to  his  mind.  The  sense  of  his  ignorance  of  many 
things  taught  within  college  walls  developed  within 
him  the  grace  of  intellectual  humility,  that  prime  con 
dition  of  intellectual  greatness.  And  his  powers  were 
not  dissipated  by  diversion  from  the  main  subject  upon 
which  his  attention  was  concentrated — law  and  politics, 
or  the  science  and  art  of  government.  So  far  from  be- 


ing  illiterate,  however,  he  was  an  indefatigable  student, 
in  his  early  youth,  and  later  in  life,  for  instance,  at 
Vandalia,  where,  it  is  said,  while  in  the  legislature,  he 
read  everything  in  the  state  library  bearing  upon  the 
special  theme  which  he  sought  to  master.  He  took 
nothing  into  his  mind  that  he  did  not  assimilate,  he 
had  a  retentive  memory,  all  that  he  acquired  was  a  per 
manent  possession,  which  became  a  part,  so  to  speak,  of 
himself. 

He  was  self-educated,  but  the  remains  of  his  personal 
library  attest  the  fact  that,  when  he  was  a  law  student 
in  the  office  of  John  T.  Stuart,  he  had  studied  with  care 
all  the  text-books  on  mathematics,  physics  and  belles 
lettres  which  were  at  that  time  included  in  the  curri 
culum  of  Yale  College.  He  probably  knew  them  better 
than  most  Yale  graduates.  He  never  acquired  a  knowl 
edge  of  any  language  but  his  mother-tongue;  but  his 
mastery  of  English  style,  as  shown  in  the  Gettysburg 
address  and  in  his  second  inaugural,  both  of  which  are 
numbered  among  the  masterpieces  of  literature,  was 
due  to  his  remarkable  familiarity  with  Shakespeare  and 
the  Bible. 

It  was  only  by  slow  degrees  that  his  ability  and  at 
tainments  became  apparent  to  the  world.  There  is 
still,  perhaps,  in  certain  circles,  too  strong  a  disposition 
to  measure  him  by  inapplicable  and  artificial  standards. 
,  The  greatness  of  a  man  consists  not  in  what  he  does, 
but  in  what  he  is.  What  he  does  proves  what  he  is. 
He  grows  by  doing,  of  course.  He  may  be  great,  but 
never  have  an  opportunity  to  show  to  the  world  to  his 
real  capacity.  Nature  has  always  in  reserve  an  unlim 
ited  supply  of  great  men,  for  whose  services  she  has 
no  actual  need.  For  the  want  of  scope  and  exercise  for 
his  talents  a  man  essentially  great  may  never  bring  his 
powers  to  the  point  of  full  fruitage.  Men  are  like 


trees.  To  produce  a  sequoia,  such  as  we  see  in  the  val 
ley  of  the  Yosemite,  there  is  needed  first  the  seed  of  a 
sequoia,  and  after  that  the  conditions  of  soil  and  cli 
mate  favorable  to  its  growth.  That  which  was  in  the 
seed  comes  out  of  it ;  had  it  not  been  there,  it  would  not 
have  come  out.  Apply  this  to  Abraham  Lincoln.  Con 
trast  him  with  the  men  who  had  opportunities  but  little 
inferior  to  his  own,  but  who  failed  to  profit  by  them, 
because  they  were  of  inferior  calibre.  He  did  the  great 
things  he  did,  because  he  was  great.  He  would  have 
been  great,  had  he  never  done  them,  being  what  God 
made  him,  though  we  might  never  have  found  it  out. 
That  is  the  central  truth  on  which  I  beg  you  to  fix 
your  attention,  for  all  that  I  may  say  will  be  by  way 
of  illustrating  it  and  pressing  it  home. 

Of  his  physique  I  shall  say  little.  His  size  and  his 
strength  are  proverbial.  As  to  his  health,  I  observe  that 
none  of  his  biographers  refer  to  any  serious  illness 
from  which  he  ever  suffered.  He  was  subject  to  fits 
of  terrible  nervous  depression,  especially  in  early  man 
hood,  but  they  seem  to  have  been  temperamental,  and 
not  the  result  of  physical  exhaustion.  He  is  commonly 
said  to  have  been  of  homely  features ;  but  I  have  heard 
an  artist,  a  sculptor,  contend  that  this  is  a  matter  of 
opinion.  Beauty  is  not  an  objective  fact,  but  a  subjec 
tive  impression;  and  for  his  part,  he  saw  in  him  the 
beauty  of  rugged  strength,  of  honesty  and  kindness, 
and  he  declared  his  face  to  be  a  rare  and  perfect  speci 
men  of  the  highest  type  of  manly  beauty,  such  as  that 
of  Julius  Caesar. 

When  we  consider  his  intellectual  qualities,  there  can 
be  no  question  that  love  of  the  truth  was  the  master 
passion  of  his  soul.  Had  he  lived  in  the  days  of  coat 
armor,  the  legend  upon  his  shield  might  well  have  been 
the  saying  of  Solomon,  or  of  some  one  as  wise  as  Solo- 


mon,  "Buy  the  truth  and  sell  it  not."  He  sought  for 
wisdom  as  for  hid  treasure.  How  he  toiled,  alone, 
without  a  teacher,  and  in  the  face  of  difficulties  which 
in  the  case  of  most  boys  would  have  proved  insurmount 
able,  to  acquire  the  rudiments  of  knowledge!  Truth 
had  such  an  affinity  for  his  mind  that  he  may  almost 
be  said  to  have  divined  it  by  intuition.  This  love  of 
truth  was  like  an  inward  light.  It  enabled  him  to  see 
all  things  in  perspective.  His  mind  was  like  a  camera. 
He  believed  in  the  truth.  He  identified  his  fortunes 
with  it,  casting  himself  upon  its  bosom  as  he  launched 
his  flatboat  upon  the  current  of  the  Mississippi,  with 
full  assurance  that  its  majestic  flow  would  bear  him  to 
his  desired  and  destined  haven.  The  larger  the  truth, 
the  greater  his  confidence  in  it.  Without  technical 
scientific  training,  he  grasped  the  basic  conception  of 
science,  that  of  the  sequence  of  cause  and  effect  in  an 
unbroken  series,  the  uniformity,  universality,  and  im 
mutability  of  natural  law.  Unread  in  metaphysics,  he 
was  a  student  of  history,  and  felt  that  he  and  all  men 
and  all  events  are  controlled  by  that  mysterious  power 
which  the  ignorant  call  fate,  the  wise  law,  and  the  re 
ligious  providence.  A  year  before  his  death  he  wrote 
to  a  friend,  "I  claim  not  to  have  controlled  events  but 
confess  plainly  that  events  have  controlled  me."  This 
simple  faith  was  the  secret  of  his  patient  optimism, 
his  unsurpassed  courage,  his  fidelity  to  every  trust. 

Closely  allied  to  this  supreme  love  of  truth  was  his 
exquisite  sense  of  right.  Eight  is  truth  in  action. 
Truth  and  righteousness  were  the  two  poles  of  the  axis 
around  which  his  entire  being  revolved  with  an  un 
varying  steadiness  resembling  the  regularity  of  the  di- 
uranl  motion  of  the  globe. 

From  a  very  early  age  he  was  dimly  conscious  of  his 
budding  powers,  and  restlessly  sought  a  vent  for  their 


exercise  and  display.  Ambition  is  innate  in  every  su 
perior  mind.  His  ambition  was  inseparably  united  to 
the  burning  wish  to  be  of  service  to  mankind.  In  his 
first  address  to  his  constituents  he  said,  "I  have  no 
other  [ambition]  so  great  as  that  of  being  truly  es 
teemed  by  my  fellow-men,  by  rendering  myself  worthy 
of  their  esteem."  At  the  moment  of  the  most  profound 
gloom  into  which  he  ever  fell,,  he  said,  "I  have  an 
irrepressible  desire  to  live  till  I  can  be  assured  that  the 
world  is  a  little  better  for  my  having  lived  in  it."  In 
his  address  before  the  Springfield  Lyceum  he  declared 
that  the  ambition  of  many  men  aspires  to  nothing 
higher  than  the  holding  of  public  office — a  seat  in  Con 
gress,  a  gubernatorial  or  presidential  chair,  "but  such 
belong  not  to  the  family  of  the  lion  or  the  tribe  of  the 
eagle."  "Towering  genius,"  he  continued,  "thirsts  and 
burns  for  distinction;  and  if  possible  it  will  have  it, 
whether  at  the  expense  of  emancipating  slaves  or  en 
slaving  freemen."  The  nature  of  the  distinction  which 
he  coveted,  and  which  he  ultimately  achieved,  is  fore 
shadowed  in  this  youthful  production.  He  obeyed  the 
injunction  of  Emerson,  he  "hitched  his  wagon  to  a 
star." 

He  was  but  twenty-three  years  of  age  when,  untried 
and  unknown,  without  backing  of  any  description,  he 
announced  himself  as  a  candidate  for  the  legislature, 
quaintly  remarking:  "If  elected,  I  shall  be  thankful; 
if  not,  it  will  be  all  the  same."  He  was  but  two  years 
older  when  his  ambition  was  gratified.  For  four  suc 
cessive  terms,  covering  a  period  of  eight  years,  his  con 
stituents  returned  him  to  the  lower  house.  Twice  in 
succession  he  was  selected  by  his  Whig  colleagues  as 
their  candidate  for  the  speakership,  and  they  went  down 
to  defeat  bearing  a  banner  inscribed  with  his  name. 
Both  in  1840  and  in  1844  his  name  was  on  their  elec- 


toral  ticket.  At  the  age  of  thirty-seven  he  was  sent  to 
Washington  as  Congressman,  the  only  Whig  Congress 
man  from  his  state.  From  that  time  forward,  he  was 
admittedly  the  foremost  man  of  his  party  in  Illinois; 
three  times  its  candidate  for  a  seat  in  the  United 
States  Senate — in  1849,  when  he  was  defeated  by 
Shields,  in  1855,  when,  in  order  to  defeat  Matteson,  he 
withdrew  in  favor  of  Trumbull,  and  in  1859,  when  he 
was  beaten  by  Douglas. 

Such  honors  do  not  come  by  accident,  nor  to  men  un 
worthy  of  them.  His  social  qualities,  his  kindness  of 
heart,  his  affability,  his  sense  of  humor  and  skill  as  a 
raconteur,  all  contributed  to  render  him  popular.  He 
had  the  tender  sympathy  for  men,  and  even  for  ani 
mals,  which  caused  him  to  spend  an  hour  in  replacing 
in  their  nest  two  half -fledged  birds,  and  then  apologize 
for  it  in  the  words,  "I  could  not  have  slept  well  to-night, 
if  I  had  not  saved  those  birds;  their  cries  would  have 
rung  in  my  ears."  It  afterward  impelled  him  to  par 
don  deserters,  and  to  say,  when  urged  to  retaliate  the 
cruelty  of  Anderson ville  in  kind,  "I  never  can;  I  can 
never  starve  men  like  that."  He  expressed  the  core  of 
his  great  heart,  when  he  remarked  of  himself,  "Die 
when  I  may,  I  want  it  said  of  me  by  those  who  knew 
me  best,  that  I  always  plucked  a  thistle  and  planted  a 
flower  when  I  thought  a  flower  would  grow."  But  pop 
ularity  does  not  insure  permanent  precedence;  it  is  as 
ephemeral  as  the  ever  veering  wind.  Leadership  de 
pends  on  the  enduring  qualities  of  head  and  heart  of 
him  who  retains  through  life  his  ascendancy  over  men. 

Neither  can  we  account  for  such  continued  ascendancy 
by  attributing  it  to  skill  in  the  arts  of  the  political 
manipulator.  He  knew  those  arts.  Within  the  limits 
of  integrity  and  honor,  he  may  be  said  to  have  prac 
tised  them.  He  was  a  politician.  No  man  not  a  poli- 

10 


tician  is  qualified  to  be  governor  of  a  state  or  president 
of  the  republic.  A  more  astute  politician  this  country 
has  perhaps  never  known.  Among  his  friends  were 
many  politicians  less  scrupulous  than  himself,  for 
whose  actions  he  cannot  be  held  personally  responsible. 
But  what  is  a  politician?  What  is  the  distinction  be 
tween  a  politician  and  a  statesman? 

It  is  the  difference  between  an  end  and  the  means  to 
that  end.  A  statesman  is  one  who  has  clearly  in  mind 
some  patriotic  purpose ;  a  politician  is  one  who  perceives 
the  processes  by  which  alone  that  purpose  can  be  accom 
plished.  Political  ends  must  be  reached,  and  are  ar 
rived  at,  by  political  processes;  they  can  be  attained  in 
no  other  way.  This  Mr.  Lincoln  well  knew,  and  his 
conduct  proves  it.  The  difference  between  a  statesman 
and  a  politician  may  be  illustrated  by  comparing  the 
former  to  the  engineer  who  constructs  a  railway,  but 
the  latter  to  the  engineer  who  sits  in  the  cab  of  the  lo 
comotive  which  he  drives  over  the  rails  after  they  have 
been  laid.  A  road  must  run  somewhere.  The  politi 
cian  who  has  no  goal  in  sight  other  than  an  office  for 
himself  will  be  apt  to  drive  the  car  of  state  into  the 
ditch  or  into  the  river.  The  self-seeking  political 
schemer  and  wireworker  is  never  a  patriot,  never  a 
statesman.  This  was  not  the  type  of  man  God  gave  to 
this  nation  in  the  person  of  Abraham  Lincoln.  He 
could  say  of  himself  in  all  candor  and  in  truth,  "I  have 
never  done  an  official  act  with  a  view  to  promote  my 
personal  aggrandizement."  He  subordinated  his.  per 
sonal  ambitions  to  the  public  good.  His  most  intimate 
friend  says  of  him,  "He  never  believed  in  political 
combinations ,"  and  again,  "He  was  much  more  eager  for 
the  second  nomination  than  for  the  first,  yet  from  the 
beginning  he  discouraged  all  efforts  on  the  part  of  his 
friends  to  obtain  it."  To  one  of  his  appointees,  speak- 

11 


ing  of  his  possible  use  of  his  position  to  influence  the  re 
sult  of  a  pending  election,  he  wrote  these  memorable 
words :  "My  wish  is  that  you  will  do  just  as  you  think 
fit  with  your  own  suffrage  in  the  case,  and  not  constrain 
any  of  your  subordinates  to  do  other  than  he  thinks  fit 
with  his."  No  more  need  be  said,  in  order  to  differen 
tiate  him  from  politicians  of  the  baser  sort,  who  seek 
to  shield  themselves  from  condemnation  by  pleading  his 
example  in  justification  of  their  course. 

No,  Lincoln  had  one  great  end  in  view  throughout 
his  life,  from  its  beginning  to  its  close.  It  was  the  ex 
tinction  of  slavery.  Its  gradual  extinction,  mark  you, 
not  its  sudden  and  violent  abolition.  He  hated  slavery 
as  intensely  as  did  Love  joy  or  Sumner  or  Seward  or 
Chase  or  Giddings.  But  he  was  like  Henry  Clay,  a 
gradual  emancipationist,  a  colonizationist.  He  advoca 
ted  compensation  to  the  slave-holder.  This  is  one  rea 
son  why  he  was  misunderstood.  Of  the  institution  as 
an  institution,  he  said :  "If  slavery  is  not  wrong,  noth 
ing  is  wrong."  He  quoted,  as  expressing  his  own 
sentiment,  the  words  of  Jefferson,  himself  a  slave-hold 
er:  "This  momentous  question,  like  a  fire-bell  in 
the  night,  awakened  and  filled  me  with  terror."  Who 
does  not  recall  the  language  of  his  second  inaugural 
with  reference  to  it?  "Fondly  do  we  hope,  fervently 
do  we  pray,  that  this  mighty  scourge  of  war  may  speed 
ily  pass  away.  Yet,  if  God  wills  that  it  continue  until 
all  the  wealth  piled  by  the  bondman's  two  hundred 
and  fifty  years  of  unrequited  toil  shall  be  sunk,  and  until 
every  drop  of  blood  drawn  by  the  lash  shall  be  paid  by 
another  drawn  by  the  sword,  as  was  said  three  thousand 
years  ago,  so  still  it  must  be  said,  'The  judgments  of  the 
Lord  are  true  and  righteous  altogether/ >: 

Never  for  one  moment  did  he  doubt  that  freedom 
would  in  the  end  triumph  over  slavery,  because  he  had 

12 


implicit  faith  in  the  ultimate  victory  of  truth  over  error, 
the  ultimate  triumph  of  right  over  wrong.  It  was  his 
fortune  to  live  at  an  epoch  when  this  was  the  precise 
issue  which  absorbed  the  attention  of  the  American  peo 
ple,  to  the  exclusion  of  all  minor  issues  which  had  pre 
viously  divided  them.  Behold  the  hour  and  the  man! 

Prom  the  day  when  his  only  term  in  Congress  came 
to  an  end  in  1849,  he  was,  as  has  already  been  said,  the 
recognized  leader  of  his  party  in  Illinois.  His  elevation 
to  the  presidency  was  no  sudden,  miraculous  event.  The 
steps  that  led  to  this  happy  consummation  are  easily 
traced  in  history.  They  were  simple,  natural,  and  in  a 
sense  inevitable. 

In  Congress,  while  he  had  voted  the  supplies  needed 
with  which  to  carry  on  the  Mexican  war,  he  had  openly 
shown  his  dislike  for  it  and  disapproval  of  President 
Polk's  method  of  beginning  it.  He  had  voted  for  the 
Wilmot  proviso,  forbidding  the  establishment  of  slavery 
in  any  territory  acquired  from  Mexico,  which  was  agreed 
to  by  the  House,  but  rejected  by  the  Senate.  In  the 
Compromise  of  1850,  shaped  by  Henry  Clay,  (who  in 
his  old  age  had  been  recalled  from  retirement  for  that 
purpose),  California  was  admitted  as  a  free  state,  but 
from  the  newly  organized  territories  of  Utah  and  New 
Mexico  slavery  was  not  excluded.  Lincoln  would  have 
preferred  to  have  had  it  otherwise,  but  he  bowed  to  the 
law  and  to  the  judgment  of  others,  his  political  friends, 
and  accepted  the  situation.  The  next  five  years  of  his 
life  were  for  him  years  of  comparative  political  quiesc 
ence.  The  Compromise  of  1850  had  been  endorsed  in 
the  political  platforms  of  both  parties.  The  Whig 
party  was  in  a  semi-moribund  state.  And  the  question 
of  the  extension  of  slavery  was  generally  held  and  be 
lieved  to  have  been  adjusted  for  all  time  by  the  Missouri 
Compromise  of  1820,  establishing  the  line  of  36°  30', 

13 


known  as  Mason  and  Dixon's  line,  north  of  which 
slavery  was  never  to  be  allowed.  It  was  then  that 
Douglas  struck  a  ponderous  blow  upon  the  fire-bell  of 
Jefferson,  whose  clangor  resounded  through  the  land, 
arousing  everybody,  north  and  south  alike.  Douglas, 
as  chairman  of  the  Senate  committee  on  territories,  re 
ported  with  favorable  recommendation  the  famous  Kan 
sas-Nebraska  bill,  annulling  the  Missouri  Compromise, 
which  was  declared  to  be  inoperative  and  void.  This  was 
in  January,  1854. 

Lincoln  at  once  sprang  into  the  ring  as  champion  of 
the  opposition  to  this  revolutionary  measure. 

No  Illinoisan  would  detract  in  the  smallest  degree 
from  the  well-earned,  well-merited  fame  of  Senator 
Douglas.  In  this  state  at  least,  the  names  of  Lincoln 
and  Douglas  lead  all  the  rest.  These  two  were  rivals  at 
all  points.  Their  respective  careers  abound  in  parallels 
and  in  contrasts,  of  which  it  is  hard  to  say  which  were 
the  most  wonderful.  Douglas,  like  Lincoln,  was  both  a 
politician  and  a  statesman ;  but  in  Lincoln  the  politician 
was  subordinated  to  the  statesman.  This  cannot  be  said 
of  Douglas  with  equal  assurance.  It  would,  however, 
be  unfair  to  him  to  question  the  sincerity  of  his  con 
victions  or  to  insinuate  that  his  motives,  though  they 
may  have  been  mixed,  were  not  consistent  with  genuine 
love  of  country.  He  made  a  mistake,  a  fatal  mistake. 
His  ability  no  one  denies.  His  soubriquet  was  "The 
Little  Giant."  The  Whigs  were  afraid  of  him.  Make 
him  out  to  be  never  so  great,  the  fact  remains  that  Lin 
coln  was  greater.  No  man  but  Lincoln  was  ever  put 
up  to  meet  him  in  debate.  Lincoln  never  feared  to 
measure  swords  with  him,  anywhere  or  at  any  time. 
At  the  State  Fair,  which  was  held  in  Springfield  in  Oc 
tober,  1854,  Douglas  defended  his  position  and  his  con- 


14 


duct  as  a  senator  from  the  free  state  of  Illinois.  The 
clarion  voice  of  Lincoln  rang  out  in  reply,  with  such 
effect  that  his  political  friends  requested  him  in  writing 
to  follow  Douglas  up  until  the  election.  They  clashed 
again  at  Peoria,  when  Douglas  asked  him  to  desist,  and 
accordingly  it  was  agreed  that  there  should  be  no  more 
joint  discussion  between  them  during  that  campaign. 

The  Republican  party  was  organized  in  1856 — in  this 
state  at  Bloomington,  in  the  nation  at  Philadelphia, 
where  110  votes  (a  little  less  than  one- third)  were  reg 
istered  as  in  favor  of  Lincoln  for  vice-president  on  the 
ticket  with  Fremont,  His  name  was  placed  by  the  Re 
publicans  of  Illinois  that  year  on  their  electoral  ticket. 
He  would  have  been  the  candidate  of  the  party  for  gov 
ernor,  had  he  not  declined  the  honor  in  advance.  He 
threw  himself  with  ardor  into  the  campaign  as  a  private 
serving  in  the  ranks.  None  the  less  on  that  account 
was  he  the  real  leader  in  the  fray. 

Those  were  the  days  of  "bleeding  Kansas"  and  of  the 
Dred  Scott  decision.  The  Nebraska  Bill  contained  what 
Benton  characterized  as  "a  stump  speech  within  its 
belly,"  declaring  it  to  be  "the  true  meaning  and  intent 
of  this  act  not  to  legislate  slavery  into  any  territory  or 
state,  nor  to  exclude  it  therefrom,  but  to  leave  the  people 
thereof  perfectly  free  to  form  and  regulate  their  do 
mestic  institutions  in  their  own  way,  subject  only  to  the 
Constitution."  This  was  called  popular  sovereignty. 
The  Dred  Scott  decision  went  farther.  The  opinion, 
in  the  nature  of  an  obiter  dictum,  was  expressed,  that 
Congress  had  no  power  to  exclude  slavery  from  the  ter 
ritories.  This  was  a  set-back  to  popular  sovereignty, 
from  an  unexpected  source.  Douglas  cheerfully  brushed 
it  to  one  side  with  the  remark  that  without  friendly  leg 
islation  to  protect  the  property  in  man,  slavery  might, 

15 


under  that  decision,  be  lawful  in  a  territory,  but  it 
would  be  impossible.  His  unfortunate  dilemma  was 
that,  to  become  president,  he  had  to  persuade  the  south 
that  his  political  convictions  were  favorable  to  the  exten 
sion  of  slavery  into  the  territories,  and  at  the  same  time 
to  satisfy  the  north  that  they  were  not  such  as  to  result 
in  its  extension.  It  was  upon  the  horns  of  this  dilemma 
that  Lincoln  finally  succeeded  in  impaling  him.  Twice 
in  succession  the  Democratic  party  had  refused  to  name 
Douglas  as  its  candidate  for  the  presidency.  The  Ne 
braska  Bill  had  availed  him  nought.  He  then  turned 
back  from  the  south  to  the  north,  and  when  Kansas 
knocked  for  admission  to  the  Union  with  the  Lecompton 
Constitution  in  her  hand,  he  broke  with  James  Bu 
chanan,  and  voted  against  it.  He  did  right,  and  his 
conduct  in  that  regard  needs  no  apology,  no  defense. 
So  great  were  his  powers  of  persuasion,  that  he  almost 
succeeded  in  inducing  the  Eepublican  party  to  adopt  him 
as  its  favorite  son,  deposing  Lincoln  from  the  place  he 
held  in  its  councils  and  in  its  esteem,  in  order  that  his 
lifelong  rival — a  man  who  "cared  not  whether  slavery 
be  voted  down  or  voted  up" — might  become  the  benefi 
ciary  of  the  change  of  leadership  which  even  Horace 
Greeley  approved  and  advocated.  Stephen  A.  Douglas 
was  indeed  a  wonderful  man. 

But  in  1858  he  was  the  candidate  of  the  Democratic 
party  in  Illinois  for  the  senatorship,  to  succeed  himself. 
The  Eepublican  state  convention,  at  Springfield,  re 
solved:  "That  Abraham  Lincoln  is  our  first  and  only 
choice  for  United  States  Senator  to  fill  the  vacancy  about 
to  be  created  by  the  expiration  of  Mr.  Douglas'  term  of 
office/'  The  issue  thus  joined  was  personal,  but  it  was 
more  than  that :  it  was  an  issue  of  principle.  From  the 
foundation  of  the  Republic  two  opposite  beliefs  had 


16 


been  contending  for  political  mastery.  The  destiny  of 
the  nation  was  involved  in  the  -choice  to  be  made  between 
them.  Lincoln  knew  it.  He  was  no  time-server,  no 
coward.  A  braver  man  never  lived.  He  had  faith  in 
himself,  but  he  had  still  greater  faith  in  the 
rock  of  truth  on  which  his  feet  were  planted.  His 
moral  judgments  were  his  own.  On  an  ethical  question 
he  was  never  known  to  ask  or  accept  advice.  This  was 
an  ethical  question.  Accordingly,  in  his  speech  of  ac 
ceptance,  he  made  the  bold  assertion:  "  'A  house  divided 
against  itself  cannot  stand/  I  believe  this  government 
cannot  endure  permanently  half  slave  and  half  free.  I 
do  not  expect  the  Union  to  be  dissolved — I  do  not  ex 
pect  the  house  to  fall — but  I  do  expect  it  will  cease  to 
be  divided.  It  will  become  all  one  thing  or  all  the 
other.  Either  the  opponents  of  slavery  will  arrest  the 
further  spread  of  it,  and  place  it  where  the  public  mind 
shall  rest  in  the  belief  that  it  is  in  the  course  of  ultimate 
extinction;  or  its  advocates  will  push  it  forward,  till  it 
becomes  alike  lawful  in  all  the  states — old  as  well  as 
new,  north  as  well  as  south." 

Then  the  storm  broke.  Few  were  the  friends  who 
dared  to  say  that  he  was  right.  The  great  majority 
condemned  this  utterance.  Your  politician  is  a  timor 
ous  creature,  short-sighted,  with  eyes  upon  the  ground, 
not  looking  upward  to  the  sky,  who  sees  in  his  own 
shadow  a  ghost  with  gory  locks,  but  the  sun  that  casts 
that  shadow  is  for  him  as  if  it  were  not.  It  was  in 
stinctively  felt  by  every  Republican  that  the  senatorship 
was  lost,  as  indeed  it  proved  to  be.  The  vision  of  a 
larger  but  delayed  triumph  was  obscured  by  the  appre 
hension  of  present  defeat.  But  Lincoln  knew.  He  had 
made  his  point.  As  a  politician,  to  take  no  higher  view 
of  the  situation,  he  was  greater  than  them  all,  greater 

17 


tnan  any  man  in  these  United  States.  Politics  is  a 
game.  It  may  be  likened  to  a  game  of  chess.  A  first- 
rate  player  says  to  his  opponent,  "That  move  will  beat 
you/7  It  only  remains  to  play  the  game  out.  At  the 
right  moment  he  places  a  piece  where,  at  the  crisis  of 
the  game,  it  will  block  any  combination  his  adversary 
may  then  be  able  to  make.  Lincoln  knew  as  well,  when 
he  delivered  that  memorable  speech,  that  on  the  main 
issue,  of  which  he  never  lost  sight,  Douglas  and  his 
party  were  hopelessly  beaten,  as  when,  in  the  joint  de 
bate  between  them,  he  put  the  unanswerable  interroga 
tory,  unanswerable  by  a  northern  candidate  for  the  pres 
idency,  I  mean :  "Can  the  people  of  a  territory,  in  any 
lawful  way,  against  the  wish  of  any  citizen  of  the  United 
States,  exclude  slavery  from  its  limits  prior  to  the  forma 
tion  of  a  state  constitution?"  Exception  was  taken  to 
that  question  also  by  his  timid  supporters.  But  what 
could  Douglas  reply?  If  yes,  he  broke  with  the  south; 
if  no,  he  cut  loose  from  the  north.  His  hand  was 
forced.  If  he  should  be  elected  to  a  seat  in  the  senate, 
he  could  never  be  president ;  if  he  wanted  the  presidency, 
he  must  relinquish  the  senatorship.  He  was  bound  to 
lose,  and  Lincoln  was  sure  of  winning,  one  or  the  other, 
while  it  was  within  the  limits  of  possibility  that  Lincoln 
might  win  both.  But  that  was  a  small  matter,  even  in 
Lincoln's  estimation,  in  comparison  with  the  fact  that 
his  election  to  either  position  signified  the  victory  of 
the  principles  for  which  he  stood,  the  triumph  of  truth 
and  right,  and  the  salvation  of  the  country. 

The  hour  is  passing.  I  think  I  need  say  no  more 
about  that  debate,  the  greatest  political  debate  in  the 
history  of  any  nation,  whose  event  was  to  decide  the 
destiny  not  only  of  this  nation,  but  in  time  to  come  that 
of  the  world,  the  fate  of  modern  civilization.  Let  us 


18 


hasten  on  to  the  meeting  of  the  Chicago  Convention. 
Lincoln  had  disposed  of  Douglas,  who  was  nominated 
by  a  minority  of  his  party,  after  a  bolt,  and  received  the 
electoral  vote  of  a  single  state,  that  of  Missouri.  There 
remained  between  Lincoln  and  the  goal  of  his  ambition 
but  one  man,  William  H.  Seward  of  New  York.  Why 
was  Lincoln  preferred  to  Seward  as  the  standard-bearer 
of  his  party,  the  commander-in-chief  of  the  army  and 
navy  in  the  coming  conflict?  It  has  been  alleged  that 
a  combination  was  effected  between  the  friends  of  Lin 
coln  and  those  of  Simon  Cameron,  by  which  the  vote  of 
Pennsylvania  was  cast  for  Lincoln  in  the  convention,  in 
return  for  a  pledge  that  Cameron  should  be  given  a  seat 
in  the  cabinet.  In  what  purports  to  be  a  memorandum 
of  this  agreement,  in  four  articles,  the  second  reads, 
"Lincoln's  friends  have  no  actual  authority — none  but  a 
moral  right."  Lincoln  had  written  to  David  Davis, 
"Make  no  contracts  that  will  bind  me."  He  gave  Cam 
eron  the  war  portfolio  because  he  believed  it  wise  so  to 
do,  not  because  he  admitted  the  binding  obligation  of 
that  pledge.  It  might  be  said  that  Seward  put  himself 
out  of  the  running,  when  he  enunciated  his  belief  in  the 
doctrine  of  the  higher  law,  because,  whatever  truth  there 
may  be  in  that  dogma,  in  its  application  to  individual 
conduct,  it  is  inapplicable  in  politics,  for  the  reason  that 
no  executive  officer  of  the  government  may,  consistently 
with  his  oath  of  office,  set  himself  and  his  conscience 
above  the  constitution  and  the  law  of  the  land.  Lincoln 
did  not  make  that  mistake.  In  his  letter  to  Davis  he 
said :  "Lincoln  agrees  with  Seward  in  the  irrepressible 
conflict  idea,  and  in  negro  equality,  but  he  is  opposed 
to  Seward's  higher  law."  The  truth  is  that  Lincoln 
was  preferred  to  Seward  because  he  was  the  greater  man 
of  the  two,  as  he  showed  himself  to  be  within  thirty  days 
after  his  inauguration. 

19 


The  theme  of  Lincoln's  greatness  is  inexhaustible. 
This  address  is  not  a  biographical  sketch,  still  less  does 
it  purport  to  be  a  history  of  his  times.  It  would  never 
theless  be  incomplete,  even  as  an  estimate  of  the  man  in 
his  relation  to  the  past  and  to  the  future,  if  no  reference 
were  made  in  it  to  the  conduct  of  the  Civil  War,  and  to 
the  act  on  which  his  fame  principally  rests,  as  the 
Great  Emancipator.  It  is  the  law  of  finite  existence 
that  every  man,  however  great,  has  his  limitations.  Lin 
coln  was  not  exempt  from  the  operation  of  this  law. 
He  could  not  sing;  he  failed  to  appreciate  the  beauty 
of  nature;  he  had  no  love  for  flowers;  he  never  read  a 
novel  through,  his  whole  life  long.  Among  the  things  he 
did  not  claim  to  know  was  the  art  of  war.  He  hated 
war.  He  made  mistakes,  especially  during  the  first  two 
years  of  the  war,  in  the  selection  of  generals.  Some  of 
them  were  sad  failures,  and  he  bore  with  them,  perhaps, 
longer  than  he  should  have  done.  But  it  is  a  note 
worthy  fact,  as  the  record  shows,  that  there  was  scarcely 
a  serious  military  blunder  committed  by  any  of  them 
against  which  he  did  not  protest  in  advance.  He  fol 
lowed  every  move  upon  the  field  of  battle,  with  minute 
attention  to  every  detail.  Often  discouraged,  he  never 
despaired.  His  patience,  his  endurance,  his  courage, 
his  sagacity,  his  devotion,  were  sublime. 

Never  before,  in  the  history  of  mankind,  had  any  man 
such  a  burden  to  carry,  such  a  task  to  perform.  The 
plurality — not  the  majority — of  voters  to  whom  he  owed 
his  election  included  the  most  incongruous  and  discord 
ant  elements,  Whigs  and  Democrats,  slaveholders  and 
abolitionists,  held  together  in  face  of  an  impending 
crisis  by  the  shibboleth  of  anti-Nebraska.  They  had  to 
be  fused  into  something  like  a  homogeneous  mass.  There 
were  the  jealous  friends  of  rival  candidates  for  the  nomi- 


20 


nation  to  be  placated.  To  nine-tenths  of  the  people  he 
was  a  stranger.  Many  believed  him  to  be  an  accident, 
many  thought  him  incompetent,  and  some  made  faces 
at  him  and  cried  at  the  top  of  their  voices  that  he  was 
an  ignoramus,  a  buffoon,  an  ape,  a  baboon.  Scarcely 
had  he  bidden  farewell  to  his  neighbors  and  asked  their 
prayers  for  himself  and  their  country,  than  he  was 
forced  to  address  himself  to  the  thankless  task  of  ex 
plaining  himself,  making  himself  known  to  the  public. 
He  was  threatened  even  then  with  assassination.  When 
he  took  the  oath  of  office,  in  a  city  so  hostile  to  him,  al 
though  the  capital  of  the  nation,  that  every  military  pre 
caution  had  been  taken  in  advance  for  his  personal 
safety,  six  states  had  already  seceded,  his  arsenals  had 
been  plundered,  his  troops  scattered,  many  of  his  forts 
seized  or  dismantled.  Advisers  buzzed  in  his  ears, 
thicker  than  the  flies  in  Egypt ;  and  office-seekers  dogged 
his  steps,  more  hungry  than  the  devouring  locusts,  whom 
he  could  not,  like  Moses,  drive  into  the  Red  Sea.  In 
less  than  six  weeks  from  his  inauguration  civil  war  had 
broken  out.  He  had  to  create  an  army,  to  equip  it,  to 
organize  it,  to  drill  it  and  make  it  ready  to  take  the  field. 
Without  a  navy,  he  had  to  establish  a  blockade,  from 
Norfolk  to  Galveston.  The  Confederate  army  advanced 
to  within  ten  miles  of  Washington.  Then  arose  the 
senseless  cry,  "On  to  Richmond!"  followed  by  the  dis 
aster  of  Bull  Run,  and  the  interminable,  fruitless  cam 
paign  in  the  Peninsula,  unrelieved  by  a  single  victory  of 
any  moment.  Neither  McClellan  in  the  east  nor  Fre 
mont  in  the  west  met  his  expectations.  Political  gen 
erals  were  the  plague  of  his  life ;  they  told  him  what  his 
civil  duties  were,  and  usurped  his  powers,  issuing  eman 
cipation  proclamations  on  their  own  responsibility, 
which  he  had  to  modify  or  disavow.  No  foreign  power 

21 


was  his  friend,  unless  we  except  Russia.  England  was 
his  secret  foe.  From  her  ports  Confederate  cruisers 
went  forth  to  harry  American  commerce,  and  her  bank 
ers  loaned  money  to  the  insurgent  government.  To  pay 
his  soldiers  and  sailors  he  had  to  improvise  a  paper  cur 
rency,  which  he  knew,  in  case  of  failure,  might  never  be 
redeemed.  We  won  battles,  and  we  lost  them.  We  ad 
vanced  and  we  retreated.  His  patriotic  soul  was  torn 
with  anxiety  as  to  the  outcome.  And  there  were  foes 
in  his  rear,  as  well  as  in  front  of  him — detractors,  proph 
ets  of  evil,  men  openly  or  secretly  disloyal,  speculators  in 
calamity,  vampires  who  gorged  themselves  to  repletion 
on  human  blood.  Speaking  to  you,  comrades,  I,  a  sol 
dier,  thank  God  that  through  good  report  and  through 
evil  report  none  of  us  ever  faltered  or  flinched,  but  we 
stood  to  our  guns  to  the  last. 

We  thank  God,  too,  for  Grant,  who  fought  the  battle 
of  Belmont,  captured  Forts  Henry  and  Donelson,  invest 
ed  and  took  Vicksburg,  was  in  command  at  Chatta 
nooga,  accomplished  in  Virginia  what  no  general  before 
him  could  do,  and  at  last  received  the  sword  of  Lee  at 
Appomattox  and  sent  home  our  brave  but  misguided 
brothers,  our  opponents  on  many  a  hard  fought  field, 
with  their  horses,  their  side-arms  and  his  blessing. 
Others  there  were,  whom  it  grieves  me  not  to  name,  but 
the  time  is  too  short,  and  Grant  was  the  noblest  Roman 
of  them  all.  Let  him  stand  as  a  symbol  of  all  the  rest. 

Some  psychologist  has  said  that  will-power  is  the 
power  of  resistance.  Since  it  is  easy  to  follow  the  sug 
gestion  of  impulse  and  inclination,  it  requires  no  extra 
ordinary  exercise  of  volition  to  do  that;  but  inhibition 
is  quite  another  matter.  Lincoln  revealed  his  strength 
in  what  he  did  not  do,  quite  as  much  as  in  what  he  did. 
We  have  noted  his  intense  feeling  on  the  question  of 


slavery;  we  have  seen  that  his  cardinal  aim  in  life  was 
to  confine  it  to  its  actual  area,  with  a  view  to  its  ultimate 
extinction.  But  the  moment  that  he  became  responsible 
to  the  nation  for  his  official  acts,  he  declared  that  it  was 
not  his  intention  to  interfere  with  it,  where  it  was  al 
ready  recognized  and  protected  by  law.  With  that  ac 
curate  sense  of  proportion  by  which  he  was  distin 
guished,  he  proclaimed  the  primary  purpose  of  the  war 
to  be,  not  the  destruction  of  slavery,  but  the  preservation 
of  the  Union.  With  or  without  slavery,  he  would  save 
the  Union;  without  it  if  he  could,  with  it  if  he  must. 
This  simple  but  obvious  analysis  of  the  complex  problem 
before  him,  this  insistence  upon  dealing  first  with  the 
most  salient  element  in  it,  leaving  the  deeper  question 
for  subsequent  solution,  though  it  was  offensive  to  many 
radical  anti-slavery  men,  was  wise  and  politic.  By  in 
sisting  upon  it,  he  prevented  the  secession  of  Maryland, 
Kentucky  and  Missouri.  When  the  hour  arrived  at 
which  emancipation  seemed  to  be  indicated  as  a  prudent 
war  measure,  calculated  to  hasten  the  collapse  of  the 
Confederacy,  he  issued  it  of  his  own  motion,  in  his  own 
words,  and  at  his  own  selected  time;  dividing  it  into 
two  movements,  so  to  speak,  two  manifestos,  the  first 
announcing  his  purpose  of  manumission,  the  second 
carrying  it  out.  It  applied  only  to  those  portions  of 
the  country  in  actual  rebellion  on  the  first  day  of  Janu 
ary,  1863.  One  year  later,  the  thirteenth  constitu 
tional  amendment  was  introduced  in  Congress,  annihil 
ating  slavery  and  involuntary  servitude,  except  as  a 
punishment  for  crime,  wherever  the  jurisdiction  of  the 
United  States  extends.  Two  years  later,  it  was  adopted. 
Illinois  was  first  of  all  the  states  to  ratify  it,  greatly  to 
the  President's  joy. 

Without  detracting  from  the  lustre  attaching  to  the 


23 


achievements  of  any  man  or  of  any  state,  Illinois  can 
point  to  her  war  record  with  peculiar  pride.  She  gave  to 
the  country  Lincoln,  Grant  and  Logan.  It  was  a  senator 
from  Illinois,  Lyman  Trumbull,  who,  as  chairman  of 
the  committee  on  judiciary,  framed  and  reported  the 
thirteenth  amendment,  by  which  the  bolt  forged  by 
Lincoln  in  the  emancipation  proclamation  was  riveted 
on  the  other  side.  Nor  can  it  ever  be  forgotten,  that 
Douglas  himself,  when  he  beheld  the  conflagration  which 
his  indiscretion  had  kindled,  severed  every  tie  that  bound 
him  to  the  past  and  declared  that,  with  an  army  march 
ing  upon  the  capital,  there  remained  but  one  thing  to  do ; 
the  most  direct  road  to  peace  was  the  most  stupendous 
preparation  for  war,  there  could  be  no  neutrals  in  such 
a  struggle,  and  it  was  the  duty  of  every  lover  of  the 
flag  to  rally  to  its  support. 

But  what  are  leaders,  without  followers?  What  are 
generals,  without  the  rank  and  file?  As  the  power 
generated  by  a  dynamo  is  discharged  through  a  single 
point,  so  a  leader  is  impotent,  unless  the  people  are  be 
hind  him  and  with  him.  The  power  itself  is  from  God ; 
it  is  drawn  from  the  everlasting,  inexhaustible  reservoir 
of  nature.  As  sons  of  Illinois,  by  birth  or  by  adoption, 
we  hold  in  eternal  honor  the  memories  of  the  men, 
officers  and  privates  alike,  who  with  Grant  ascended  the 
Tennessee,  sailed  or  marched  down  the  Mississippi,  and 
shared  with  him  the  glories  of  Vicksburg,  Chattanooga, 
the  Wilderness,  and  Spottsylvania ;  who  with  Sherman 
were  at  Atlanta,  and  made  with  him  that  daring  march 
to  the  sea;  who  with  Meade  saw  the  crest  of  the  rising 
tide  of  rebellion  break  against  the  stone  wall  by  the  or 
chard  and  the  cemetery  at  Gettysburg;  who  with  Sher 
idan  cleared  the  valley  of  the  Shenandoah  and  fought 
the  battle  of  Five  Forks.  Wherever  they  were,  there 

24 


or  elsewhere,  on  the  land  or  on  the  sea,  of  the  great 
majority  it  can  now  be  said,  "Their  swords  are  rust, 
their  bones  are  dust,  their  souls  are  with  the  saints,  we 
trust."  A  few  of  us  still  survive,  to  plant  flowers  upon 
their  graves  and  water  them  with  our  tears. 

The  story  of  the  surrender  and  of  the  assassination, 
both  occurring  within  the  space  of  one  short  week,  is 
too  fresh  in  your  minds  to  demand  retelling.  That  of 
Lincoln's  death  is  too  sad.  It  would  cause  you,  even 
now,  forty  years  afterward,  too  much  pain.  He  was  the 
man  in  the  parable,  whose  ten  talents  had  gained  ten 
other  talents  beside  them,  to  whom  the  Master  could 
say,  "Well  done,  thou  good  and  faithful  servant."  He 
gave  the  crowning  proof  of  love;  he  laid  down  his  life 
for  his  friends.  He  was  the  enemy  of  no  man.  Of 
those  in  arms  against  the  government  and  of  their  sym 
pathizers  at  the  north  he  said,  on  the  day  of  the  sur 
render:  "Enemies!  We  must  never  speak  of  that! 
The  south  felt — Grant  has  said  it,  and  we  believe  it — that 
in  his  death  the  south  lost  its  best  and  truest  friend. 
He  was  the  friend  of  every  man.  Had  he  lived,  what 
would  have  been  the  history  of  reconstruction?  We 
can  only  speculate;  we  can  not  tell.  This  at  least  we 
know :  that  there  was  in  his  heart  no  bitterness,  no  mal 
ice,  no  hatred,  no  revenge.  No  man  living  would  have 
so  rejoiced  at  the  sight  which  it  is  our  privilege  to  be 
hold,  of  a  country  reunited  in  fact  as  well  as  in  name, 
with  the  blue  and  the  gray  drinking  out  of  the  same 
canteen.  Having  obtained  a  good  report  through  faith, 
he  received  not  the  promise;  but  like  Moses,  he  saw  the 
promised  land  from  the  top  of  the  mountains  of  Nebo. 
And  he  was  not,  for  God  took  him. 


26 


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